


Poviestka

by megilins



Category: Poviestka - Dobroslav Chrobák, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canon Divergent, Clueless Rey, F/M, Smuggler Ben Solo, canonverse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2021-01-13 10:41:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21242765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/megilins/pseuds/megilins
Summary: A few days ago, Rey’s mother left to run an errand. Ever since then Rey patiently waits for her in their humble home in the middle of Jakku desert, isolated from all life of the whole galaxy.A visit by a mysterious stranger prompts Rey to think about her way of life.Is it worth waiting for someone who might never come back, when there is someone to be with right now?





	1. Sunset

_ Dear goddess of infinite sandy planes,_  
_I humbly plea for resilience in the coming days._  
_The past few weeks have been cursed with drought_  
_Please bless my heart with a few dew drops._  
_Your humble servant honoring you_  
_in all the ways I am able to_  
_all I ask for in return is to keep me here_  
_just long enough until mother returns_  
_for when she gets home we’ll have each other_  
_and two less souls will plead for your affections_  
_Thank you my dear goddess_  
_for the patience and strength I’ve been given_  
_I can’t help but sense in my very dry bones_  
_that I am not to be alone anymore._  


The desert was a quiet place. The quiet was thick and heavy, sucking onto the skin as a leech. It was so quiet, it felt deafening.  


Tiny steps, crunching of dry grass. A small rodent was making its way through hot shards of sand.  


A pair of bigger creatures were making their way through the sandy plains. The setting sun was illuminating them brightly while they strolled through the dunes. Every so often they glanced towards a steel shelter nearby from where they could smell smoke.  


Under the canopy near a toppled AT-AT a young girl was sitting. She was holding a dirty bowl in her hands she didn’t feel like cleaning up yet. While the sun was still up for the last few moments of this day, she was taking in the orange glow of the sandy sea, looking at those creatures back and praying.  


At the end of each day, there was nothing else to do than pray and hope and wait.  


Rey didn’t know her last name, but she knew the hardship of living in the middle of a desert. It wasn’t easy or pleasant, but she made do with what she had. She would spend her days driving around her area to check on the moisture collectors, hunting, or foraging. It was not a life of abundance, but she always managed to collect just enough to get her through the day. Some days she would spend going through nearby ship graveyard, looking for parts in case her moisture collectors would need repairing. Other days Rey couldn’t go out because of violent sand storms. She would wait them out in her AT-AT tinkering with scavenged parts, reading those few holo-books she found during her scavenging trips, or trying to repair her broken ancient computers.  


And every evening she spends under the canopy near the entrance to her makeshift home. She looks at the sky and its changing colors, with swirling pink and red clouds above as the first stars of the night appear on the purple sky.  


Some days she is tenser than other. As she’s observing clouds, she can’t help but notice all the planes, ships and hoppers making their way through the atmosphere. She squints her eyes extra hard to better see and tenses her body to better hear every time any of the ships remind her of the one her mother left on a few days ago.  


After the sun sets it doesn’t take long for darkness to envelop her and to invite all the nightly creatures out of their hiding. It is Rey’s cue to hide inside her modest home. After cleaning up her bowl, washing away the dust on her body with a sponge all there is to do it to scratch another mark onto the wall and lie down into her hammock and fall asleep with a prayer on her lips.  


One non-particular evening Rey was sitting by the entrance to the AT-AT watching the sunset with an empty bowl in her hands. She was intently looking above the horizon, not paying much attention to ships for once. Her eyes were unfocused as her mind wandered. Suddenly, she came back from her thoughts and her eyes focused on a bright yellow dot floating above a nearby dune. Rey scrunched her face to see better what kind of a creature it was, but the closer it got, it was more and more apparent that the dot was in fact a person on a speeder. Rey knew it couldn’t be her mother – she would come back on the ship and the person on a speeder was much smaller. Rey knew, that the rational thing to do was to hide and barricade herself in her home, or if not that, at least to grab her staff in case she needed to defend herself, but for some peculiar reason she didn’t do any of that. She wasn’t scared, didn’t feel threatened. The speeder was getting closer and closer until it stopped at the last second just a few meters away from Rey, making sand fly in all directions. Tiny orange woman hopped down from the speeder and went straight to Rey.  


Rey believed in miracles, but not that they would ever happen to her. She didn’t see the tiny orange woman as a person that drove to her house asking for something. Instead, she saw this mysterious apparition as if it was just as natural part of tonight’s sunset as were the blood orange clouds. Even though she couldn’t think of the connection between the two, she felt as if the sun herself produced this tiny orange woman. There was no other way.  


What finally surprised Rey about this whole encounter was when the woman started talking. If she wasn’t already sitting on the ground, she would probably faint as she at once felt her tiny world collapsing.  


The stranger wanted to borrow a screwdriver. The same screwdriver Rey was tinkering with just a few minutes ago. Rey completely paralyzed, unable to respond just sat and stared with her mouth hanging open. She didn’t hear another person talk since her mother left.  


The tiny orange woman reached to the ground and took Rey's screwdriver. As she was starting up her speeder, she promised to return the screwdriver the next day. When the speeder vanished on the horizon, Rey managed to crawl back to her AT-AT and close the door behind her for the night. Unable to stand up or move any further, she cried herself to sleep right then and there on the ground. She was certain that she would never see that screwdriver ever again.  


**/ / / / /**  


The next morning Rey didn’t waste any time and went straight to ship’s graveyard on western dune to look for supplies to craft a new screwdriver. It would be as unwise to wait for the return of her old tool as it would be to wait for the time to rewind back on its own and undo what already happened.  


However, yesterday’s event made Rey anxious to see another miracle. Suddenly she started to fear all the possibilities that are waiting for her out there. With the apparition of the tiny woman, Rey’s world suddenly became much bigger and stranger. She started to feel as if every rock, dried branch or bone would suddenly slither behind her. On her way back she tried to walk with her eyes closed to make that feeling go away, but that made it somehow even worse. The fear overwhelmed so much of her soul, she couldn’t think and her whole body became possessed by a feeling of helpless weakness against not only exterior forces but also her own mind.  


Once Rey managed to return to her AT-AT, she didn’t bother with having dinner or watching the sunset. She went straight for her hammock, closed her eyes and willed herself to wake up from this infinitely long nightmare.  


As she became unconscious, the fears in her mind dispersed and made room for something else. Pale pink flowers started to bloom at the bottom of Rey’s mind, alongside a lot of tiny snippets of memories that were not really her own, but felt real nonetheless. They were just short bursts of colors, sounds, smells, textures. Bright, calm, fresh, smooth. Rey couldn’t recognize almost any of them, but they all somehow felt familiar.  


Hollow metallic sound.  


_Dun, dun, dun, dun..._  


Startled Rey opened her eyes, recognizing that the sound is from her door. Someone is on the other side banging on it.  


„I brought back the screwdriver!!!“ voice of the tiny orange woman carried from the other side of the door. As Rey opened the door the tiny woman smiled at her from under the huge goggles and waited for Rey to take back the screwdriver from a stretched out hand. Rey took the screwdriver carefully and put it into a pocket of the trousers she was wearing.  


The tiny woman suddenly sat down on the ground, on the same spot Rey ate her dinner yesterday and Rey couldn’t help but follow, sitting down next to her.  


„What is your name?“ asked the tiny woman.  


„Rey.“  


„I couldn’t help but notice, that you live here all by yourself,“ the tiny woman adjusted her goggles and pierced Rey right through her soul.  


„I live here with my mother. She went on an errand, but she will come back soon,“ Rey said quietly looking over the horizon.  


The tiny woman asked Rey more questions and the more they talked the more at ease Rey felt. She talked about her scavenging, her favorite spots to hunt, she talked about her prayers to Goddess and the animals she likes to observe. The tiny woman listened with patience.  


„And what about your father?“  


„What is a father?“ asked Rey with confusion plastered on her face. The tiny woman didn’t answer Rey’s question. Instead she smiled with kindness and sorrow. However her eyes also sparkled with interest. As if she started to devise some sort of plan. As if she decided on something. She stopped asking questions and Rey stopped talking. They both looked at the horizon, counting all the ships that flew by.  


After a few quiet minutes, the tiny woman got up and waved her hand at Rey to say goodbye. The woman tried to smile, but her eyes were focused somewhere and sometime completely else.  



	2. Dawn

It seemed as if nothing has changed. For the next few days Rey went about as usual – collecting water and food, praying, sleeping, waiting.   


It was easy to pretend nothing had happened.   


It was easy to pretend, that the orange woman was just a vision.   


It was easy to pretend those few days were just a dream as Rey scratched the 5000th mark on the wall.   


And then, one night, Rey woke up from her restless sleep. She heard someone breaking into her AT-AT. The sounds were coming from the second room, where she kept her rusty red speeder.   


Squeezing a knife in one hand and her staff in the other she made a move towards the room, listening for the intruder. As she opened the door she was surprised to see the tiny orange woman sitting on top of the speeder.   


“Good morning Rey, now let me borrow your speeder for a bit,” she said and started up the engine.   


“Noooo! NOOO!” screamed Rey as she ran behind the speeder.   


“Please, come back…” she whispered to herself with tears in her eyes as she realized the speeder is too far ahead.   


There was nothing else to do but follow the path of the speeder. Rey planned to walk for half a day and if she didn’t manage to get to it by then, she would simply turn back home to be back by sunset and devise a new plan some other day.   


She packed a water bottle and an old nutrition bar, and just as the first rays of sunshine peeked above the horizon, she set off in the direction she saw the tiny woman drive off.   


There was a faint track made in the sand which was easy to follow. Step after step, Rey soon fell into a meditative state, all she focused on was her breathing, how her feet hit the ground and the very faint warm breeze.   


When it was just a smidge after noon she saw a gray ship in the distance. Never in her life she went as far as this, so she didn’t know for certain how long it was there, but it seemed out of place to her. It looked functional and she could see some sort of movement inside. If she squinted her eyes just right, she could see a red smudge down below the landing platform. This was the closest she saw to her speeder the whole trek. It would take her another hour to get to it, but if she hurried she would just make it home before the dark.   


She didn’t like the way breeze picked up speed, but she was really close now and what difference does another hour make? Even if her speeder wasn’t there it would be safer to hide inside this ship than to walk home when the wind is blowing more and more forcefully and might erupt into a proper sandstorm any minute.   


She walked with a newfound vigor and by the time she was almost by the ship she was jogging. The closer she got, the clearer it was that it really was her speeder.   


However, as she went closer a crewmember inside the ship noticed her not at all stealthy approach.   


Rey finally made it to her speeder. First, she opened the left hood to make sure the engine is still there and it’s functioning properly. Just as she was closing it, she heard some steps above her. It must have been someone much heavier than the tiny orange woman. There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to go, all she could do was pray to goddess it’s not something that would hurt her. She tried to quickly sit on her speeder, but by the time she made the decision, the person’s steps reached the solid ground.   


“You must be the girl I’ve heard about,” said the person covered in long dark cloak, hood covering their head.   


“Maz told me you might stop by today,” the voice went straight to Rey’s bones as if her very essence was being modified by it. Rey tried to ignore it, she tried to hop onto her speeder and drive away as quickly as possible. The wind billowed all around her, tiny specks of dust and sand crawling into her eyes and nose. She cursed to herself for forgetting to pack her goggles. The scarf would have to do for today.   


“The storm is coming this way. I saw it on my radar. It would not be safe for you to drive back right now,” said the mysterious figure. Then they turned back and went back into the ship. In a moment a few feet next to Rey something hissed open.   


“Park it inside so it won’t fly off during the storm. You would never be able to find it again,”   


Rey didn’t like anything about this situation, but at the same time she felt as if it was exactly what was supposed to be happening at that moment. She didn’t like the idea of going inside a ship, but she also knew it was not safe to take off during the storm. Meeting another stranger was the last thing she wanted to do in the foreseeable future, but she also remembered that she quite enjoyed her evening with Maz and in the end she did return the screwdriver.   


Maybe this was just her goddess testing her. Maybe if she succeeded in this quest, she would finally allow mother to come back home.   


It was only a few days, but Rey misses her terribly and there isn’t a moment she would not be thinking about reuniting with her.   


“I didn’t believe someone would really come, I thought it was all just a prank. Maz likes to joke around,” the person said as they lead the way inside the ship. When they entered a small room with seating area and cooking equipment the person plopped down on one of the chairs.   


“What is your name?”   


“Rey,” she answered as she tried to discern the face hidden in the shadow of the oversized hood.   


“Rey, Rey, Rey, and where are you from, young Rey?”   


“I’m from… around here,”   


“Around where?”   


“From there,” frustrated Rey gesticulated behind her to show the way she came from.   


“And where are you from, young… lady?” shot Rey back after a moment of silence, trying not to give away her frustration and fright. The seated person quietly chuckled.   


“Young lady?” their laughter became louder and louder.   


“Me? A lady? Do I look like a woman to you?” he stood up and shrugged off the hood from his head and then the cloak from his broad shoulders, showing off wide chest covered with a black long-sleeved top. Even though he was clothed head to toe, she could see just how different he was from any other person she had seen so far in her life. It wasn’t just that he was taller and bigger overall which made his steps heavier and more purposeful, it was also raw power vibrating all around his limbs, different kind of coziness that eluded from his solid torso, and the warm softness given away by his long wavy charcoal hair.   


“I am a man, isn’t it obvious?”   


A man? This word she never heard of. There was always just Rey, mother, and goddess. They were all women and Rey living in her shelter had no idea that there were more kinds of people than that.   


As quickly as he started laughing, he became serious again. He averted his gaze embarrassed and replied to Rey’s earlier question:“I’m Ben Solo and I’m from Chandrilla, I work for a delivery company. The business is not as good as it used to be, but I think we might get over the slump this year.”   


Then they were both quiet. Rey, embarrassed of how little she understood of what Ben said and Ben, very embarrassed of his earlier laughter. He wanted to make a good impression, so he started over again more carefully with a question he considered quite safe: “How do you know Maz?”   


Rey just shrugged her shoulders, too scared she might make herself sound stupid again. Ben moved towards one of the cabinets and took out a bottle of some dark green powder.   


“You may sit by the table while I make lunch. I was just about to eat before you came,” he said with his back turned to Rey as he poured some of the powder into a bottle. Then he pushed a button and hissing steam poured out of built-in dispenser into the bottle, transforming the powder into hot soup.   


Once the bottle was full, Ben took two beige cups from the cupboard and brought everything to the table where Rey was seated. He figured she probably lived in very sheltered community. Maybe she has never seen an off-worlder before. Maybe this was her first time inside a ship. Her seemed to be anxiously shaking, but he could also see her eyes were filled with wonder.   


Ben poured the green thick liquid into both cups and started drinking. Rey followed his lead and took the other cup. After the first careful sip, she decided that she liked this beverage. It was definitely new for her, she’s used to drinking just water from the evaporators and this was way more satisfying and filling, thick, warm, earthy… Rey didn’t have much to compare it to besides moldy rations from abandoned starships or whatever she managed to find in her close proximity which may or may not include desert rats and birds of various sizes.   


“If you want to you may use my comm to call home,” said Ben after a few sips of his soup.   


“Why would I want to do that?” she asked carefully, because there was more in Ben’s suggestion she _didn’t_ understand than did.   


“You might want to tell your folks you are safe and that you are stuck here for a while. Whoever you live with, so they don’t have to be worried about you.”   


“Oh,” exhaled Rey, “no, I don’t need to do that, but thank you.”   


Ben didn’t want to pry, so he just waited a few second for Rey to open up on her own.   


“My mom, she actually is not home right now. She had to leave for a bit. She was supposed to come back right away, but something probably came up… It’s been a few days. But it’s alright, I am certain she will come back very soon.”   


“I know all about waiting for a mother that is late a few days because something came up,” said Ben to his cup staring into the dark liquid reminding him of some sort of portal leading to another dimension.   


“Really? You have a mother too?” Rey said excitedly. The moment she said it she could feel somewhere around her stomach that it was absolutely ridiculous question.   


Ben didn’t seem too amused, only a little bit, and he looked away from his soup back to Rey with a soft smile: “Yes, I do have a mother.”   


“I just thought…” Rey stammered, suddenly full of urge to explain herself, “I just thought that since you are a man… That men don’t have mothers. I thought you were born of someone like you,”   


“It’s okay Rey, don’t feel bad, it’s not your fault that you didn’t know,” Ben forces himself to reassuringly smile again, even though he felt anger creeping up to the forefront. It broke his heart to think that Rey’s mother kept her so sheltered and unaware. They were possibly part of some cult or an organization… Whichever it may be, no one deserved to be kept from the outside world in a prison for so long and so thoroughly that they weren’t aware of the fact that whole other sex of humans exists. And that would be just one thing he now knew she didn’t know about, but it felt only as just a cherry on top of the whole 8-layered wedding cake of facts, concepts, and ideas that were kept from her. All of a sudden Ben had a very strong urge to whip out his datapad and give Rey a 6 year long lecture about basic science, math, art, and history.   


“By the way, thank you for this, it was very tasty,” Rey tried to change the subject. She drank the last few drops of her soup and put the cup on the table.   


“No problem,” said Ben as he stood up with both cups and the bottle. He put them into another cupboard already filled with other dirty equipment. After he closed the cupboard, he pushed a button next to it and the cupboard started humming. Rey seemed fascinated by every beep and flashing button and she began to feel more confident and curious than frightened.   


“I’ve never been on a ship that actually works. Only in crashed ones. This one seems so alive in comparison. Everything is blinking and humming,”   


“Yes, I suppose so. Once you get used to it you won’t notice it at all,” Ben mused, glad to see her talk more on her own. Maybe she just needed to eat properly. She seems much more relaxed every minute. “Do you want to look around the rest of the ship?”   


“Yes! Yes, I would like that,” Rey tried to contain her excitement, but it was impossible.   


**/ / / / / **   


Rey was familiar with various types of starships, hoppers, land speeders, and such, even if she didn’t know how everything worked or what were the proper names for all the parts and compartments.   


She started to feel more at ease once Ben gave her the tour of the ship. He showed her every room and compartment inside and he promised he would show her some exterior features in the morning once the sand storm would subside. In turn she opened up about her life on Jakku as they were sitting together in a plush nook in captain’s sleeping quarters.   


She described in great detail how she spends her days, her adventures in abandoned ships, her conversations with the goddess or many of her hunting trips. She described all the animals she encountered in the desert during the last few days since her mother left and she also described their strange behaviors. How some would scream or sing or fight and how some of them would embrace afterwards. As she was telling this story, Ben averted his gaze and started studying his hands while his ears turned red while a faint blush crept from under his jumper to his face. At once Rey herself became very warm and glowing, feeling her cheeks turn pink.   


“When you showed me around, I noticed a lot of the lights and controls are not working anymore,” Rey suddenly changed the subject after a few moments of heated silence.   


“Yeah, I’m not very good at keeping up with that stuff.”   


“May I look at some of those malfunctioning parts?” asked Rey with curious spark in her eyes.   


**/ / / / / **   


“At first, I took this job, working all alone, to clear my head. I wanted to spend some time with myself. And then I sort of… I don’t even know any more if I am really better off alone, or if it’s just what I’m familiar with,” Ben confessed as he was handing Rey tools she needed, while she was laying on her back on the floor, tinkering with some wiring in the wall.   


“I know how that feels. Sometimes I don’t even know if I want my mother to come back,” admitted Rey as she was untangling the wires. As soon as the words left her mouth she sat up.   


“I don’t mean that, of course I want her to come back. But I must be prepared for all the possibilities. One of them is that she may not come back,”   


“I’m sure everything will turn out all right, Rey. You said she just went on an errand, right?”   


“Yes, but I can’t help being worried.”   


“Does she go on these errands often?”   


“This is the longest she left me on my own,” Rey tossed the clipper to the toolbox, “I’m done, can we move on to the next thing?”   


**/ / / / / **   


Rey seemed determined to fix the whole ship and make it new again. She liked working on ships even on her own, but it was extra enjoyable when she was with someone else. Ben was very helpful assistant who would carry around the toolbox, hand her the all the screwdrivers she needed, hold a flashlight or just give her some general advice he read in the manual on how to do what in which order.   


“Why did you let all the repairs pile up this much?” asked Rey when they were on their fourth mini project, both crouched over controls of a fancy light system in the captain’s quarters after Ben outlined detailed debugging instructions for her to follow.   


“I just couldn’t be bothered repairing stuff I don’t need for vital functions.”   


“Well, I couldn’t be happier you let me do this with you. I love making things alive again,”   


“Alive?”   


“Yes, broken things are dead. But once they become useful again, they will start humming and buzzing, they are alive again.”   


“Sometimes you have a funny way of expressing yourself,” Ben chuckled at which Rey frowned, “I mean it as a compliment… It’s refreshing. Where did you learn all this anyway? did your mother teach you?”   


“I just practiced. A lot,” replied Rey disinterested.   


After a few minutes of plugging and unplugging, repairing and untangling cables, all the lights built in the alcove of the double bed worked again. Ben was organizing spare parts into piles on the floor when he looked up to see Rey making some finishing touches bend over the bed with her bottom lifted towards the ceiling.   


“We should have dinner,” he suddenly proclaimed and quickly left the room, Rey clumsily clambered off the bed to follow him.   


**/ / / / / **   


“Do you want to choose the dinner? I have a few different options,” asked Ben taking out a clear plastoid container full of various packets filled with powders, cubes, and gels.   


“I don’t know what any of these are,” said Rey as she came closer and peeked inside the box.   


“Oh, actually, I know some of these,” she scrunched her nose when she noticed a familiar packed filled with brown spongy cubes. She once found a cargo filled with hundreds of those and these past few days, without her mother, she had enough of them for the rest of her life.   


It was apparent Ben really wanted her to choose for herself, so she decided to go by color.   


“Do you have something… Like the sky during the sunrise?”   


“As a matter of fact, I happen to have something that looks like the sky during the sunrise,” he smiled as he rummaged through the box to find Rey’s pink snack.   


“It’s my favorite color you know,” said Rey as she sat on a chair in front of Ben, “Do you have a favorite color?”   


“I’ve never thought about that.”   


“You seem like someone who might like night sky. I like that one too. I like all colors of the sky.”   


What an odd way to describe color. And endearing, romantic, poetic, and artistic. Rey didn’t deserve to be kept in this prison by her mother. Even though Ben has spent less than a day with Rey, he was so angry at the world for her sake. Such a curious sensitive woman should be anywhere but here, wasting away, merely surviving. She should be allowed to thrive and bloom into her fullest potential and then some more.   


**/ / / / / **   


After they ate their jelly cubes Ben showed Rey the fresher. He wanted to prepare a bed for her while she cleaned herself up, but he didn’t manage to even open a drawer with blankets when he heard a heart wrenching scream and frantic opening and closing of the door.   


“Rey? What happened?” he ran towards the sound, “Did you burn yourself?”   


Rey sat curled up in a corner wrapped in his towel with just her wet head and bare feet peeking out. Her face was all red, but not endearingly adorable like when she told him that story about happabore’s mating season. She was properly upset.   


“Ben, I’m so sorry, I probably pushed the wrong button, I’m soo-…” she hiccupped as she tried to hide her face into the towel.   


“Did you burn yourself? Are you hurt?” Ben kneeled next to her.   


“No. I just pushed the button and then the water started pouring down, I am so sorry Ben, I didn’t mean to do that,”   


“It’s okay. It wasn’t a wrong button,” Ben assured her and when she looked at him confused, he remembered how she earlier told him about her moisture collectors and then he understood what just happened.   


“I’m sorry Rey, I should have warned you that It’s not a sonic shower. It uses recycled water. You don’t have to feel bad, you didn’t accidently pour out my whole water reservoir,”   


“I didn’t?”   


“No, you really didn’t.”   


“It still feels awfully wasteful.”   


**/ / / / / **   


After Rey got out of the refresher for the second time that evening, she was visibly glowing. She wore a white knee-length tunic and oversized socks Ben lent her for sleeping. Her wet hair was spilling over her shoulders and back. Ben was positive he’s never seen more beautiful creature in his whole life and that he also never will.   


Ben walked her to sleeping quarters where he prepared a bed for her. He didn’t know how she liked to sleep, so he rummaged the whole ship to find all the pillows and blankets he had. In the end he arranged five pillows near the headboard, spread one blanket over the matress and put two more folded blankets at the foor of the bed.   


„You can sleep here. Just unfold those two blankets if you get cold. And if that won’t be enough, you can wake me up and I will try to figure something out,“ Ben explained hastily as Rey sat on top of the bed.   


„Thank you Ben, it is very nice of you,“ said Rey running her hand over one of the pillows. She didn’t mean just the bed. In her mind she was thanking him for the whole day. Somehow trapped here, in this half broken garbage ship, she experienced more than in all of the time she waited for her mother. Ben just nodded and smiled.   


„Good night, Rey,“ he looked back at her in the doorway as he was leaving.   


„Good night, Ben,“ said Rey with a smile on her mouth and tears prickling at the corners of her eyes. When Ben left the room for good, she let the tears pour down her face and quietly cried. She usually forced herself not to in fear of dehydration, but she couldn’t help herself at that particular wonderful moment. It felt like an eternity since the last time someone made her dinner, prepared a bed and wished her good night and all of a sudden Rey didn’t know how to deal with all of the conflicted feelings she had about it.   


**Author's Note:**

> This story is based on a short story _Poviestka_ by _Dobroslav Chrobák_. Some parts of my story are translation or very close adaptation of the original text, other parts are changed slightly or greatly to fit Jakku desert landscape (instead of meadows and mountains of north Slovakia), other parts are completely made up either to fit the story with these characters in their galaxy or because I simply wanted to have fun.


End file.
